The One and the Many
by Destiny Chaser
Summary: Neo reflects on the great responsibility that his role imposes upon him, and all those who depend upon him for their beliefs, integrity and lives.


Disclaimer: I don't own The Matrix; the Wachowskis do. Simple as that.  
  
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Author's Note: Seeing as I rarely release new fics, here's the second of two released at the exact same time, along with some fan art which may be found on my profile, to mark the anniversary, as it were, of the beginning of the 'Year of The Matrix' (which, I am still convinced and will continue to grumble about, was really 1999, but here it stands as 2003). So here's my first ever one-chapter fic that centres on Neo. This is Neo on being a messiah, upon realising that so many people suddenly depend on him for their integrity, belief and livelihood. Please R & R, and thank-you if you do!  
  
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"The One and the Many"  
  
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There were so many of them. Grasping at his shoulders, his hands, his legs. He knew he should not have been scared – these people were the very same that he was trying to save, after all – but he wanted Trinity. Everything they said about him was singular, as if he was capable of sustaining himself as an entirely independent entity. None of them could really ever know what it was that allowed him to continue. Of course he was aware of the interests of humanity in general, but there were personal reasons for his striving, too.  
  
Voices softly murmuring, shouting, praying. He remembered what Cypher had once said to him, probably within the same hour he had consolidated the plot behind his betrayal. Nowadays he tried to suppress all memory of Cypher, because he had demonstrated how base and cruel some human beings could be. Neo had been forced to push away all memories of tyrants and criminals, their influence read of or experienced, to convince himself that if they could all only see the truth, their persuasion would be changed. He had to forget Cypher ... because he had to forget that this was wishful thinking.  
  
"So you're here to save the world. What do you say to something like that?"  
  
Neo still was not sure of the answer. Too often it arose in his mind as just something he had to do, regardless of how he felt about it. An unpleasant duty. He would hold onto Trinity sometimes and ask inside his head why it was him who had to endure this great responsibility. He thought about it for a while, always finally remembering that if it had not been him, he might never have been saved by Morpheus or one of the other rebels. How would he have felt then? He would have died having lived a joke, a pale imitation of life. He would have gone on, meaning nothing to anybody except for the sentinels sucking away at the energy his flesh had processed from the protein soup of his forefathers, not drinking to the formerly deceased president, but drinking up the formerly deceased president. Sometimes he thought he could still taste the acrid metal mouthpiece on the inside of his cheeks. His former windpipe. Thinking of it now made him feel dirty and unholy.  
  
These people did not seem to think so, though. They forgave him his former ignorance because they needed him. A man was muttering almost incessantly into his ear the story of the fevered child in his arms whose mother had been reported dead in the sewers the week before. The EMP on her ship had failed to work – a rare but enormously deadly incident. The man wanted Neo to bless the child and restore his health. Neo could not make him understand. In the matrix he could perform miracles, as it were, but here he felt like all the others. He looked at the child sadly and ran his fingers down its emaciated arm. It was all he could do. He could hear a small voice within him praying along with all those people, though not to himself. It was searching for a god, pleading that every one of the men and women who had waited outside the lift for his arrival would be saved and sustained.  
  
The man thanked him, bowing, and left the group. Neo supposed he thought he was lucky. He had been honoured with some sort of contact, as opposed to a vague nod. That approach seemed to have satisfied most people quickly enough, but he was left with a hollow sensation inside, for all of them. Like a million boreholes in his soul. Soon enough he had responded to the last person, and was left alone. One of the captains they had met upon docking strode past, bobbing his head once as a gruff greeting. Neo returned it with a relieved smile and twisted his neck in the direction he had seen Trinity leave. The metal corridor towards their room was eerily empty. He rearranged the strap of his sack on his shoulder bone and started off at a brisk stride.  
  
It was only a short walk from there to the cabin. In the late afternoon calm some doors had been left open, and as he passed by he could see people sat on their beds, women talking over sewing or items of stone jewellery they were polishing and threading, and other individuals drinking from deep metal tankards. Life was so normal for them. Most did not know that within a few days their lives would be in terrible danger. More, more, more people to pity and grieve for.  
  
He came to his door, pulled to from the inside, and pushed it open with his unburdened arm. Trinity was sat with her back to him at the other end of the long stone room, unpacking into her half of the single metal cabinet they shared. He closed the door with his foot and came up beside her.  
  
'Are you-?' Trinity began, not looking at him as she carefully stacked three steel cups to the side of her clothes.  
  
'Yes.' Neo sighed. 'It's getting harder.' He unhooked the sack from his body and started taking his own belongings out. A hat for when it got cold onboard, an extra pair of boots, a few bowls and some cutlery. He bit his lip.  
  
'I keep wanting to explain to them how terrible things could become. I can't be there to shield the blow if a squidie tries to disembowel them. I can't automatically cancel out the damage if their children start dying of dysentery because the machine that filters the water has been destroyed. There's so much, it seems to me, that I can't save them from.'  
  
'That may be true,' said Trinity, 'but even if you can't protect those people here, whatever you do indirectly will make a difference. Don't worry. In a few hours they'll have retrieved the information sent by the Osiris. You'll talk to the Oracle and everything will become clear.'  
  
'Like it was last time?' snorted Neo. The Oracle's very nature lay in the cryptic. He was himself starting to have doubts about the verifiability of half the things she said, doubts that people like Morpheus would strongly rebuke him for if he were to mention them.  
  
Trinity laid a firm hand on his arm and looked hard at him. 'Don't talk like that. We hold on and stay patient and positive. You especially. Whatever we might think about what the Oracle says, it's clear that her loyalties lie with us.' She shrugged. 'Where else could they lie?'  
  
'You're right,' said Neo slowly. He took the last item, a fine little watch that operated off the new pattern of 'day and night' that had been established underground (since no one had known what the real time was for many years), out from his bag and lay down on the bed, holding it above his head and staring at it.  
  
Five golden hands glittered back at him, describing three concentric paths. The outermost was like that on a normal watch, like the ones they had in the matrix – it started and ended at 12, with an hour, minute and second hand. The middle ring estimated the day of the week. The innermost suggested what year it might be, the ring accommodating for a century. The whole thing was, like measuring up the Oracle's words, complete guesswork. All anybody suspected with any degree of certainty was that they were approaching the year 2200. In science fiction flicks that would be about the same time people were driving sleek flying Mercedes, had discovered the cure to cancer and had the technology needed to live forever. So much for that. Many people did not keep a watch, or at least refused to use one unless they had appointments at a particular time, because they found them pathetic and depressing. Neo kept one because it at least reminded him that the human race was trying to re-establish some sense of normality comparable with the one they had lost.  
  
When she had finished arranging her belongings, Trinity came and lay down beside him on the bed. She placed her left hand on one of his raised wrists and rubbed it gently. Neo let the watch fall back onto his chest. His eyes remained on the spot where he had held it.  
  
'I know you find it tough,' said Trinity. 'But I'm perfectly confident you can get through this. So long as you need me I'll be right with you. Okay?' She raised her eyebrows expectantly. Neo looked at her and nodded stiffly. 'On my way here Cam - you know, Captain Sören's wife - told me they're having a gathering in the cave tonight. In about an hour. She's pretty sure Hamann will want Morpheus to deliver some sort of speech since the Neb's hardly ever in Zion. We should go – Morpheus explaining what's happening will probably put your mind at ease.'  
  
Neo pressed his eyes tightly shut. 'Or make things a million times worse.' Trinity started. 'No, we'll go. It's probably for the best. I guess we know only too well what harm hiding the truth can do.'  
  
Because that is what I seem to spend half my life doing, and it's definitely done me a world of damage. Neo tried not to let his despair show on the outside as he slipped his arm around Trinity. No, it was not his problem alone that he bore the burden of responsibility. From what his mind tormented his nights with it was clear that soon it might consume her. It seemed impossible to predict the time and place of what he had seen in his recurrent dream. It was too fearful to think about, but it permanently loomed over him. He felt like he should set a curfew – find an exit before dark and stay away from any motorcycles. It sounded like the sort of thing his parents had always shouted after him before he left the house as a teenager. He could not talk down to Trinity like that. We're as stubborn as each other, he thought fondly. All the same, he did not know how to explain it. Who wanted to be told that every night, inside another person's head – a person whom they were very close to, they died the same death, over and over?  
  
Super-morbid broken record.  
  
Just as the system lied to us, I am lying to all the civilians of Zion. I am lying to those who hang on the Oracle's every word. I am lying to Trinity. These were all the layers of venomous irony on a single poison bud. Was compassion impossible without censorship?  
  
He wanted to tell them, but it would break his heart to do it now. The bud was going to blossom at some point, though.  
  
Suddenly there was a loud rap upon the door. Trinity uncurled from where she lay with her head cradled in his elbow and yawned, allowing Neo passage to get past and see who was out there. As he touched the handle he heard deep, stern voices, one of which was instantly recognisable as Morpheus's.  
  
'Any news from the Caduceus?' he asked.  
  
'They've tracked the package from the Osiris,' replied the other voice. 'Two men have been sent in to retrieve it. They're not far outside of Zion, so we should have it by morning. I think we can all sleep easy tonight.' Neo noted that the tone had become almost mocking by the last few words.  
  
'I haven't slept in days,' said Morpheus. 'I've started to realise the grave limitations of such a small crew when it comes to operating a ship and keeping it safe from sentinel attack.'  
  
'Then, why don't you expand it? Plenty of aggressive kids anxious to come onboard.'  
  
'I'm waiting for something special.'  
  
'You wait any longer and you'll be dead.'  
  
Neo opened the door. The captain he had seen earlier was stood beside Morpheus, looking rather red in the face. Neo was aware most captains were either indifferent or hostile towards him because unlike most children of Zion they appreciated the danger of the matrix and how high the odds were stacked against him when it came to destroying it as the prophecy said he would. Here in the real world they considered him as much a help and a liability as anybody else. Just because he was on the Nebuchadnezzar, that did not mean it was invulnerable. A few of them expected him to die, sooner or later. Two or three of those really could not give a damn if he did.  
  
'You're being asked for,' explained Morpheus. 'Some people clearly didn't know you were home. They asked me to tell you they were waiting. I said I couldn't promise them the honour.'  
  
'No, it's fine. I'll go see them. They're going to need an extra boost to prepare for tonight's news.'  
  
'Yes.'  
  
Neo looked round at Trinity hesitantly. She smiled and crossed her hands in her lap in a relaxed gesture. Contented as he could be, Neo turned and followed the two captains down the metal catwalk again. Considering Morpheus looked upon Neo's powers solely as a great and rewarding gift from destiny, he seemed strangely subdued, his head down almost meditatively with his slow pace allowing the other captain to stay easily two steps abreast of him. Neo wondered what the commander had said to him. He had been always, of course, aware of some hostility between Morpheus and Lock – it was hard not to be whenever they returned to Zion – but he had never thought it proper to ask the underlying reason. He was distinctly surprised by this: back in the matrix, without knowledge of this great part he was supposed to play, his brusque attitude would have hammered an explanation out of Morpheus with no regard for whatever emotions he struck upon. Now things were different. Perhaps it was the fact that you always felt you had sentinels close enough to dribble machine oil down your neck in the claustrophobia of the tunnels, but he had grown more careful and cautious. Remarkably more sensitive.  
  
The sensitivity swelled as he saw more believers crammed along either side of a passageway ahead of them, and even resolved itself in a sort of love. Maybe that word was too strong, but there was genuine affection, and with it genuine despair. The hand he reached out was still chained to the matrix – if anything had changed since his unplugging it was that he had acquired free will of some description, but was still burdened with the obligation to go back time and time again. Ironically, that was something against which his will rebelled. In some deep-set way he did not want to admit to the machines had won. Even when you were free from their mind trap it could still terrorise you.  
  
'I may see you tonight,' said Morpheus in the sort of tone that seemed to add, 'If my, or your, public will allow it.' He continued past the smiling people with the other captain.  
  
Neo tried to harden himself once again to the ignorance of hope.  
  
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A.N.: Well, that was brief. Don't think I've ever cut it off quite so sharply as that. Anyway, please leave a review! I send you an imaginary cupcake if you do, and shower you with joy and confetti! ... Wait a minute – confetti? I also send my compliments to those who have noted the shockingly obvious references to the "wise words" of Cypher in both of these fics. Let us not allow the memory of that traitorous rat to die in Matrix fan fiction – he's an interesting sort of bloke, after all. 


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